


Comitatus

by SweetSweetRevolt



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: Abandonment, Character Death, Depression, Father issues, Future Fic (?), M/M, Mentioned/Implied Underage, Mentions of other Canons/Drafts, Mentions of past abuse, Mentions of reincarnation, Promiscuity, Schizophrenia, Tabris is a cat, Touch-Starved Character, he also talks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-19
Updated: 2015-11-14
Packaged: 2018-04-27 04:35:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5033992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SweetSweetRevolt/pseuds/SweetSweetRevolt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"What name do you want?" he asked, knowing he wouldn't receive an answer.</p><p>"Tabris."</p><p>The child-like voice rang in his ears, and Shinji paused, going still. He glowered down at the kitten, who seemed to be completely at ease and unaware of the taboo he had commited so easily.</p><p>When Shinji took too long to respond, the kitten repeated himself.</p><p>"You can call me Tabris. That's my name."</p><p>Or: Shinji Ikari's Talking Cat Asks Too Many Questions And He Might Be Going Insane</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tabris

**Author's Note:**

> A few things—firstly, this is really just me trying to break my writer's block, so any comments on my writing would be extremely appreciated. Secondly, I swear to god this isn't gonna be a beastiality thing. Thirdly, this is going to gradually become a very fucked up, very original-series-like story, and if you aren't up for what is probably going to be an emotional mess, you might want to back out now.

The day had started as a normal one.

He woke up. He got ready. He went to work. It was a routine. And if the routine went as planned, as it had for the past two years, it would continue on. He’d leave work. He’d get home. He’d eat. He’d sleep. And then the cycle would begin anew.

Shinji didn’t necessarily like that system, but it was all that he really had. He hadn’t any friends, nor any real family. All he had was a useless degree and a sad studio apartment in Tokyo.

The day had been normal by his standards, but equally meaningless. It was early autumn and the leaves were just beginning to turn. Every step Shinji took came with the crackling of them under his black work shoes—not that he heard it, more that he felt it. Shinji hadn’t felt connected to the world in so long, and so he no longer tried. Instead he wore his earbuds like phylacteries against the people around him. It was better to listen to the same songs again and again than to listen to the same cruel words just the same.

So, he’d been walking. It was half-past five in the evening, and only the barest hints of the coming nightfall could be seen in the orange glow of the sky. He was almost alone on the street, as he lived rather far from downtown, but that was what he preferred. With the imminent evening and solitude came the slight bites of the wind, and Shinji had been fixing his coat just a little tighter around himself when one red earbud fell out his ear, dangling beside him as it reached for the ground.

He paused, planning to fasten it back into place and then quickly carry on, but was stopped by a surprising black blur. It came out of nowhere, he could swear, and swatted at his earbud as if it had been waiting all day for the opportunity. A startled cry fell from Shinji’s lips before he could stop himself, but he didn’t do much other than tense up—as his body seemed to think that stiffness equated to camouflage against danger.

When said 'danger' turned out to be a fluffy, black kitten, he nearly melted. It was not a warm feeling so much as a deep relief, but all the same, he took a moment before he pulled up the earbud and stared down questioningly at the furball before him.

It was a young little thing, perhaps it had just stopped weaning, and with it’s bold orange, almost red eyes, it seemed to exude confidence that Shinji couldn’t dream of having.  
It was a little sad, to be honest. But maybe that’s what drew him to the little thing? The kitten never wavered, and merely stared up at him expectantly, as if he’d drop the earbud right back down for it to continue toying with.

A minute of silence passed that way, a minute long staring contest between Shinji Ikari, a twenty-four year old commuter, and the fluffiest kitten in all of Japan.

The kitten let out a small mew as Shinji cautiously brought his hands down around it and picked it up. It curled up a bit as he held it, with one hand cradling its lower body and the other hand holding its head as he might a baby. Another moment without any well-dreaded hissing or scratching, and Shinji began walking again.

It was only a small detour; it didn’t change his routine. It was safe.

\---

After three weeks had passed, Shinji could assure himself that adopting a stray kitten hadn’t been a horrible mistake. It was a little different, but it was a good different.

Now when he woke up, it was to the kitten’s gentle purring as he, as Shinji had quickly learned the kitten’s sex, lounged by his ear. Now when he ate, he fixed him food too, and he meowed with every bite as if he were telling Shinji about the events of his day. Before the man would leave every day, the kitten would rub against his leg as if to say goodbye, and when he arrived home he would run right up to him, nearly yowling for attention.

It was, admittedly, so very nice to be wanted. Even by just a pet.

A name hadn’t been chosen yet, as Shinji simply couldn’t decide on the perfect one, but that was fine. When he wanted him, the kitten seemed to simply know, and listened when he whistled or snapped.

It was a blessing, really, from what Shinji knew of cats.

Furthermore, having a pet did something wonderful for his motivation. He found that it wasn’t as hard to get up in the morning when he knew someone needed him, and that it was much easier to get through days in his office cubical when he could preoccupy his thoughts with the cute things his little pet had done that morning and would no doubt do again.

His coworkers had started to notice.

The nicest of the bunch, from the cubical to the right of his, had rapped her fingers on Shinji’s cube just the other day. “You’ve been looking pretty content lately,” she had said, not unkindly. “It’s a nice change.”

Shinji had just nodded, a little surprised and a little pleased but mostly embarrassed.

Still, it was better than the reaction he’d gotten two days before that, when his supervisor had walked into the breakroom and nearly screamed, “Is Ikari smiling!?”

Fortunately, no one else had been in the room, else Shinji might have quit his job then and there.

\---

The feared change took place a month after he’d gotten the kitten, when Shinji had decided that enough was enough.

With care, he sat himself cross-legged on the white carpeted floor of his apartment, and stared down at the slightly bigger black kitten that chose to bite at his fingers rather than sit correctly like a composed feline might’ve.

Shinji coughed into his hand as he took it away, successfully gaining the kitten’s attention.

“You need a name,” he began, attempting to look serious, but smiling when the furball quirked his head. “A name!” he repeated.

“…But I can’t decide on one,” he continued. Attentively, he ran a few fingers over the top of the kitten’s head, satisfied when he purred in response. “What name do you want?” he asked, knowing he wouldn’t receive an answer.

“Tabris.”

The child-like voice rang in his ears, and Shinji paused, going still. He glowered down at the kitten, who seemed to be completely at ease and completely unaware of the taboo he had committed so easily.

When Shinji took too long to respond, the kitten repeated himself.

“You can call me Tabris. That’s my name.”

Shinji still didn’t dare move, only shut his eyes and took a deep breath. Without another moment’s delay, the young man stood up and flopped onto his mattress. The room’s lights flickered off in response, and Shinji tried not to scream into his pillow.


	2. God Heard You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think a weekly update schedule is a good goal for me, don't you?
> 
> Enjoy your foreshadow-y filer. Lots more where this came from.

When he woke up the following morning, the kitten, Tabris, was curled up next to his head and seemed to be humming even as he purred.

\---

All things considered, Shinji thought that he was handling the fact that his cat could talk fairly well. He hadn’t screamed, though it had taken a lot of effort. He hadn’t thrown the kitten out—even if he was some sort of freaky phenomenon that could talk and use light switches, how could he ever put any sort of cuddly baby out on the streets?

When two weeks had passed, it became clear that Tabris wouldn’t be stopping his trick anytime soon. Truly, Shinji wondered if he’d been holding back all that time, just waiting for the right moment to speak up.

Tabris talked about _everything_.

The weather, his day, the neighborhood dogs, the food, and the most infuriating, Shinji. 

“What’s your favourite colour?” Tabris asked one day, trying to climb up onto his couch but never making it. Seated on the other end, Shinji only watched him, never answering.

“Do you like brown? Or blue?” he asked, using his claws to finally pull himself up onto the seat opposite Shinji. “I don’t know what they look like to you—my eyes are different. But I’m sure whatever it is is very nice.”

Another time, Shinji had just gotten home from work and had been immediately asked, “Do you have any friends? What are they like?”

Later that night, just as he got into bed, it’d been, “Your blankets don’t have anything on them. I think some stars would look nice, don’t you? Do you like stars?”

To every one of them, Shinji refused to respond. It was too much; if he answered, he’d have to acknowledge that his kitten really was talking to him, and he didn’t want to deal with what that implied about himself. But after two weeks of it all, he began to feel guilty. Tabris was starting to look forlorn, and no matter how he tried to convince himself that it didn’t matter how a strange talking feline felt, a kitten was still a kitten. And a fluffy, sad, dejected looking kitten was _unbearable._

So, after two weeks of ignoring his descent into insanity, Shinji asked his own question.

He’d just gotten home, not from work but from another activity of his (that the details of which could be shared on a later date), and pulled off his coat when Tabris approached him. As always, the kitten sat by his newly de-shoed feet and mewed between ‘hellos’. 

Shinji exhaled. Shinji inhaled.

“What did you do today?” he decided to ask, the words cracking only a little bit, and took a small amount of pleasure from how Tabris seemed to almost vibrate in response.

The kitten went off, detailing his day from when Shinji had left earlier in the day to just before Shinji arrived home, when he’d attempted to jump onto the coffee table and had failed rather spectacularly.

By the time Tabris had finished speaking, Shinji had seated himself comfortably on his sofa with a bowl of noodles for himself and a can of tuna set on the floor for his pet.

“You aren’t getting bored, are you?” Shinji inquired, still not quite out of shock. Seated as he was, still in his casual clothes, he was nearly trembling. _‘I’m talking to a kitten,’_ he kept thinking, _‘A kitten!’_

Tabris very clearly shook his head before humming in thought. “Not yet!” he chose to say, licking a bit of juice from one dark paw. His lips didn’t move with his words, Shinji noticed, not sure if it was a relief or not.

_‘Maybe I’ll get him some toys,’_ Shinji decided. _‘Maybe if I make him happy enough, he won’t talk anymore.’_

\---

When Shinji got into bed for the night, Tabris curled up right beside him, purring noticeably louder than he had the nights before. It was a small comfort.

\---

Three months after Tabris first started talking, Shinji felt that things had returned to normal, more or less.

The routine stayed the same. He woke up. He got dressed. He fed Tabris. He went to work, or wherever.

But then things got a little more difficult, as with his improved mood (courtesy of his talking ball of fluff) came people who _liked_ his improved mood, and people who wanted to be _around_ him, with his improved mood.

Of course, that made him sound popular, when in reality his new circle of friends only included Horaki, the woman who worked in the cubical next to his, and Aida, who worked in a different department but dropped by often enough to be interested in whatever Horaki and Shinji had to say to each other.

(With the responsibilities and pressure that came with having friends, Shinji was actually glad that he had Tabris to warm up on, conversation-wise.)

But while talking at work was one thing, socializing outside of that was a different thing altogether. As a general rule, Shinji had always opted out of after-work drinks or dating, or anything that could potentially end horribly.

(In fact, most of his non-work related activities were strictly no-strings attached, but that was a rather depressing topic that he didn’t want to get into, lest his new friends find out about his less than savory tendencies.)

So when he was asked, by Aida, if he’d like to go out with them for drinks one evening, he was wary. It's not that he didn't like drinking--even before he was legal, he'd occasionally indulge himself. But more pressing was the fear that something would go wrong. He'd never gone out like that before. What if there was some etiquette he didn't know about? Not that there could really be etiquette to getting shitfaced with friends, but what if he said the wrong thing? Let something slip? Got drunk enough to ruin any good relations he had managed to scrounge up in the past months?

With only a little reluctance, he gave Aida an excuse ("I-I have to be somewhere tomorrow morning, I better not...") and returned home to recount the moment with his housemate.

Tabris was less than amused.

"Why did you lie like that?" Tabris was curled in his lap as Shinji sat on his couch, his usual place-to-be at 7:30 in the evening. Vermillion eyes glared up at him in chastisement, and despite the ludicrousness of it, Shinji felt like he had to justify himself. ( _'To my cat,'_ he thought fiercely, _'my cat!'_ )

Thinking, the brown haired man ran his fingers through Tabris' thick coat (was he a persian?), despite the slightly annoyed look it got him.

When a minute had come and gone, Tabris' hiss of impatience had Shinji fumbling for words.

"I d-don't know!" he yelped, barely moving his hand in time to avoid bared claws. "Hey! None of that! If you claw me, I'll lock you in the bathroom!"

"Why'd you lie?" Tabris demanded again, his childishly sweet voice reminding Shinji of a spoiled child who didn't get the toy they wanted.

"I just didn't want to go!" Shinji cried out, standing up and letting Tabris fall off of him and onto the floor. The kitten landed easily enough, barely phased. "I'm not good in those situations...what if something happened? I don't want to go, a-and get drunk, and then s-say something, and, and, I..." he groaned, rushing to his bed where it stood a few feet from the back of the couch. "Just drop it! Please!"

A moment of silence. Tabris sighed, walking around the couch and sitting just behind it.

(A Himalayan?)

"I'm not trying to upset you." the kitten soothed, and it made Shinji want to laugh.

What was wrong with him? Why did his _cat_ talk to him? Why did its voice dominate his thoughts, why was _he_ the voice of reason, why did _he_ feel real to him? Why him, why?

Shinji shook his head, and realized that he had pulled himself close, arms wrapped tightly around his knees. He detangled himself and got up to go to the bathroom, more than ready to sleep.

"I know you aren't--it's okay. Just, lets not talk about it." _Let's just not talk about anything, ever again._

Alone in the bathroom, Shinji sent a silent prayer to a god he wasn't sure he believed in.

_Please, please. When I wake up, make it stop. Please make him stop talking. Please don't let me be crazy._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm hoping that by the end of this I'll finally have relearned how to properly describe things and emotions and bleh. My writing is stiff!


	3. She Saw It All

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First, I should apologise for taking so long. Real life is a terror. (Speaking of terrors, keep Paris in your thoughts. When the Pope says it's World War 3, you know it's real.) And I want to thank you all for the kind comments and kudos and all those good things. As a general thing, I don't reply to comments, but they do mean a lot to me.
> 
> Lastly, I'm sorry for the amount of fucked up contained in this chapter. So sorry. Not too much, in my opinion, but just enough that some of you might cringe and run away. In better words--warning in advance for mentions of incestual thoughts.

Shinji's life had never been...good. Easy, yes, for quite the time, but not good. He'd been happy when he was a toddler, when his mother was still there, but that was a time long gone. He couldn't even remember what she looked like. And then, for so long after that it'd just been him and his dad. For years they had lived together, but that was as close as they got, never really coming together as father and son.

 

Shinji didn't mind. He couldn't miss what he'd never had, right? But he also couldn't help but feel bitter about all the disappointments in his life.

Middle school hadn't been fun at all. And he'd thought it would be. He'd been so convinced--on TV and in manga, school was an adventure. School was friends and drama and romance, and all of those amazing, interesting things. But that had never come to him. Middle school was spent in the back of the class, alone and isolated with only the SDAT he'd taken from a box of his dad's old things. For a while he’d even been bullied, but by the time he’d started high school, the other kids had learned that it took too much effort to get a rise out of Shinji Ikari. A few had found that mentioning his mother got him reeling, but a victim that fights back isn’t much of a victim.

 

School had been a dark time, all the same. Sometimes, he thought he’d rather be bullied—at least then someone would pay attention to him, someone would touch him. Instead, his peers seemed to shy away from him, reluctant to even breathe the same air as him.

 

It had hurt. It had hurt so much more than it ought to’ve.

 

Worse had been watching them—boys and girls his age who enjoyed life. Watching them talk and laugh and joke and cry over the littlest things. He longed (still did) to feel that kind of emotion. What was it like, to not always think about how disgusting humanity was, to not always feel out of place and dead to the world.

 

It would’ve been easier had his father been there for him. If only he’d had just one person to stand by him, care for him, love him…maybe he wouldn’t be so fucked up. How much of a change would it have made if his father had just _talked_ to him? Praised him?

 

For those last few years of school, he’d had the strangest fixation over his father. He spent most days fantasising about being treated like a son should have been treated—with pats on the back and sports’ talk, and ‘I love you, son’s. But then that fixation became a desperate obsession, and after that first damning thought— _what if he came to me in the night and he held me and touche_ —he’d spent the first night screaming, the second sobbing into his arms, and the third planning his suicide.

 

Of course, he’d never gone through with it. He was a coward, and always would be. What was more terrifying than life, after all, than the afterlife? He’d go straight to Hell, he knew. If not before, then especially after that thought, especially after that feeling. He’d rot in Hell and God would laugh from his perch at the very top of the universe.

 

\---

 

God never listened to his prayers. It made Shinji question if there even was one, until he finally figured that there must’ve been one, and he simply hated Shinji Ikari with all of his being.

 

In a strange way, it felt better to think that he was abhorred, and not merely insignificant to the world in every possible way.

 

\---

 

His incontinence began the winter after he started college. Truly, he hadn’t known why he even attended—he’d never thought he’d live long enough to do such a thing, didn’t really have interest in anything school had to offer, and would never have thought his father would pay for him to attend, anyway. But he supposed that his father had his own, self-serving reasons. Perhaps it was just to make sure the family name wouldn’t be attached to a dunce.

 

Whatever his reason, he’d pulled some strings so that Shinji could attend a nearby university, and Shinji attended without complaint. His father had forcibly enrolled him as a business major, but it hadn’t been too difficult to get through. He wasn’t stupid, never was. It was more his own reluctance to exist that had always held him back from getting the best grades—he’d stopped trying once it became clear that high marks wouldn’t buy his father’s praise.

 

But it hadn’t all been for nothing. At his former teacher’s insistence, he had joined the school’s orchestra. Cello had been lost to him for so long, but with the benefit of being paid for every performance, Shinji had brushed up on his skills and auditioned, as told. The audition had been a horribly anxiety inducing ordeal for him, and he had nearly thrown up outside the hall doors, but he’d managed it, somehow.

 

He hadn’t made any friends out of his fellow musicians, but there’d been a sort of camaraderie among them all. It had felt like he had a family, of sorts, when they all came together to play sweet, beautiful music. He hadn’t felt excluded there, as even though he hadn’t made any lasting connections, they still looked to him as their fellow artist. It wasn’t much, just a few interested inquiries, a few compliments, a few chastisements (the most surprising of them all, as he hadn’t felt ashamed of himself at those times, had only felt determination to do better and earn their happiness when the next run of the measure went perfectly.)

 

It had been the evening after their winter concert that he’d been encouraged to go along with them for drinks and had been begged not to skip out. So he went with them to their bar of choice, and they’d snuck him in and bought him drinks, and he’d indulged himself. Was that too much to ask, really? For one evening that he could spend acting like most college students did? One night to forget everything that was wrong in his head, and instead focus on the intoxicating drink in his hand and just…just _live_ , even if it’s a mockery of a life he’d be living.

 

And it was sometime later that night that he’d found himself being pulled along by an older woman at the bar, deaf to the cheers and jaunts of his fellow musicians, and had taken part in a different sort of release. The following morning he’d scrambled to get dressed and leave her apartment, had cringed and groaned at how heavy his head felt, and had felt unnecessarily angry at the sun for existing. But he also felt sort of…good. Relieved. It felt like some of the weight that had always pulled him towards the ground (and his own casket) had vanished.

 

Despite how blurry it all was in memory, he could still remember the bliss from the night before—from _fucking_. Fucking, as it would happen, felt amazing. And fucking, he could do that again, he knew. College bars were full of hormonal young women who would be looking for someone to spend the night with. Even if he wasn’t really the man of their dreams, he was okay, or at least, that’s what the woman from the previous night had said.

 

“You’re cute,” she’d said, “and sometimes that’s better than handsome, or sexy, ya know?”

 

He didn’t, not at all, but at the time she’d been kissing his neck between words, and he would have agreed with anything she said if it kept her going at it.

 

She’d said a lot of things to him, and was overly talkative during the entire event, but it hadn’t been bad things. It’d been ‘you should touch here’s and ‘do like this’s, and Shinji had found that he didn’t mind it at all. In fact, the ordering around had been his favourite, and even though admitting it had him blushing for hours afterwards, it had been kind of…liberating. To give up dominance in favour of following someone else’s every word.

 

So it became a regular activity, no matter how he had tried to stop himself. With how difficult most things were for him, this was easy. He didn’t really have to do much of anything, and no one expected him to. He was short and skinny and looked as if he could be crushed to pieces with one shove, and some women hated that, but that was okay—they weren’t the ones he wanted. It was so much easier to give up control, and if he got drunk enough, an equally drunk woman would see him as a little lost thing and would comfort him in the best way her drunken mind could think of.

 

Between his new distraction and orchestra, Shinji had finally felt like he was a member of the world. For four years, he’d been content, even if it was all just an illusion and poor in quality.

 

But as all things, it came to an end. He graduated with a degree he didn’t care about and it was if all the good things he’d finally found had left him forever. Without the orchestra to keep him steady, he had quickly felt the despondency he’d been holding back crash forward, and he’d be the first to admit that things got a bit out of hand.

 

Then came the moment when promiscuity became addiction, and in a conscious attempt to avoid getting involved in more dangerous activities, Shinji had quickly found a job with a phone company to keep himself preoccupied with more savoury pursuits. But with such a mind-numbing job came a need for something mind-stimulating, and sex became his only indulgence, reserved for Saturday nights like one might have saved an evening for board games.

 

(The comparison had left him laughing and wishing desperately for a drink before common sense returned to him, reminding him of all the things that would go wrong should he drink a drop more than he could handle.)

 

It wasn’t something that was easy to explain to Tabris, his talking-light-switch-flicking-non-stop-question-asking cat of five months, who’d finally begun to wonder just where Shinji went off to every Saturday, and why he never came home until the morning after.

 

He’d just been making his way out when the cat had stopped him, staring at him accusingly from his spot directly in front of the door.

 

“Where do you go?” he’d asked just moments before, and Shinji had yet to respond.

 

“Every weekend,” Tabris elaborated, “where do you go?”

 

Shinji knew he should have just given some lie about visiting his father or hanging out with people, or something. But he was too shocked by the question, and the chance to lie was lost.

 

Still, he tried. “Nowhere.” Shinji said, immediately cringing. _Brilliant, you’re brilliant_.

 

Tabris merely hummed in thought, tail slapping against the carpet as he feigned indifference.

 

“It’s not important.” Shinji added, fiddling anxiously with his scarf. Winter would be over soon, but it was giving a big farewell—with harsh winds and a chill that almost made Shinji want to just stay home. Almost.

 

Tabris stayed put.

 

Shinji didn’t want to have this conversation.

 

“If it’s not important, why don’t you stay tonight? We can watch the television!” Tabris gushed, looking very excited at the idea. Shinji didn’t say anything, conflicted. The need to do… _that_ is strong, and is all that has ever gotten him through the week. It’s the only contact he’s ever gotten that wasn’t cruel, and the only outlet for the dark thoughts that often times pushed him to consider doing something stupid. But that wasn’t true anymore, was it?

 

Tabris had become the centre of his world, in a weird way. It was still mentally exhausting at times, and really was not healthy at all, and he should have checked himself into an insane asylum months ago. But there were good parts too.

 

He had a friend. One that was actually genuinely interested in him. One that enjoyed his company. One that wanted to know about his day, and also happened to like curling up in his lap and eating tuna and scratching up the bathroom door. Wasn’t that even slightly better than seedy bars, and uncomfortable morning after’s?

\---

 

For the first Saturday in two years, Shinji didn’t go out to a bar. And Tabris, curled up happily in his lap as his owner watched a bad drama, stared adoringly above before his eyes narrowed in suspicion, and then closed in resignation.

 

“Why did you stay?” he questioned, waiting patiently as Shinji put the show on mute and looked down at him in confusion.

 

“You asked me to.” Shinji answered, trying to figure out what Tabris could have been thinking, but failing. “…didn’t you want me to?” he asked. Tabris only sighed, a strangely sad sound, and snuggled into the plush teal blanket draped over Shinji’s lap.

 

“Of course,” he assured, and after another moment of silence Shinji put back the volume to enjoy whatever he could of the overdramatic love story on display. Tabris, alone in his thoughts, mused on the stark difference between wanting to do something and feeling compelled to—things that his dear Shinji had yet to learn.

**Author's Note:**

> I know it seems like it's gonna be a cute story about a boy and his talking cat but seriously, beware.
> 
> Updating is probably gonna be erratic, because I don't have enough time for anything, but I'll try to keep things rolling (even though the last time I wrote a multichaptered story was about five years ago.)


End file.
